Saturday, 10 May 2014

Giant Mushrooms and an Alien Bike Ride

Aletheia

Out of the blue on Monday (I think it was Monday), the lovely Bunz IM'd me and invited me out on a date. Bunz and I met through a mutual friend, and we got chance to bond one afternoon at the bottom of the sea beneath my skybox when Party Cat went missing and Bunz volunteered to help find her. We didn't find her, but we did find a massive shark that you could ride on the back off around and around in circles. As you do.

First, Bunz took me to Aletheia, home of europa. Although I've shopped at europa before, I've never been to their in-world store, and it was pretty cool! Everything had a larger-than-life cartoon aesthetic, and the water was crystalline and beautiful. We bounced around on the enormous mushrooms, and tried to climb on top of the goblin statue you can see just on the edge of the picture above (but we couldn't - he was a hollow phantom and when I tried to stand on his head, I fell straight through him). I got the urge, too, to throw Kitti off the edge of the highest mushroom down into the water - so naturally, we gave in to my impulse. I tried to take a picture as we did it, but Bunz accidentally flew instead of jumping (non SL users: it's controlled by the same button), and thus all I managed to photograph was Kitti's hair de-rendering because I had zoomed too far out.

Bald Kitti and Non-Existent Bunz. Oops.

Next, Bunz took me on the most insane and hilarious joyride of my life...with ET.

Here we go

Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore, eat your heart out!

When you arrive, a bicycle for two plus a fruit crate containing a wrapped-up ET appears on the floor of the forest. As soon as you hop on, the race begins. We were chased through the trees by police vehicles with flashing lights before we zoomed up into the sky, and cycled passed the Moon to recreate the classic ET image. After that, though, the ride stopped resembling any Steven Spielberg film and just turned to the insane. We were bombarded by all kinds of aliens and weirdos perched on different levels in the sky (but unfortunately, we moved far too fast for me to snap any pictures of them). They were hideous, and looked like something out of Monty Python.

At the end, we landed and the bike vanished, and ET appeared in a stereotypical flying saucer and took to the sky in the wake of a pretty impressive firework display and light show. However, I obviously triggered the button for ET's ascendance a second time when I tried to leave the scene because it started up again and the ever-charming Bunz laughed her head off and said ET wanted to abduct me.

Attempted abduction

You'll be relieved to know that I didn't get abducted. We managed to escape off the mud and out passed a whole wall of aliens-for-sale. If you're looking for some aliens to jazz up your house or whatever, I'd recommend seeing ET about them.

I had an absolutely fantastic time. Bunz is lovely and hilarious, and this was a fantastic and certainly original date. I laughed for the duration of the sky bike ride, and for a good ten minutes afterwards. It was brilliant. I'd recommend it to everyone and I am seriously going to be taking/sending everyone I know to experience it :P.

If you'd like to see it for yourself, click here - here! Likewise, you can visit Aletheia by clicking here - here! Thank you so much, Bunz, for a great time.

If you'd like to take me out on a non-romantic date, whether you know me in-world or not, please don't hesitate to send me a message :). I'd love to hear from you.